Continuing the madness that is Mercury in retrograde, our intended Red Line stop at Porter Square, from which we had planned on walking to Harvard, was not a stop that was open for this weekend. (The same thing happened last year, thank you fickle Red Line, but this year I was not hopping on transfer buses.) We made a quick recalculation and got off at Central; we would enter Harvard from the other side of Mass Ave. There were a few Tibetan stores on the way in, and much has been done with that area since a guy offered me a swig from his paper bag way back in the 90’s. It was only about 5 o’clock, but it might as well have been midnight, so dark had the sky suddenly turned. Christmas lights and the merriment of some Santa con event gave everything a festive air, and the feeling of the holidays was finally coming through. It had, up until that moment, been strangely elusive. I embraced it, and we slowed our steps. Good friends are in sync that way.
At the first Tibetan store, Kira found a hat just like the one she had recently lost (one that she procured on one of our first Holiday Strolls, so the symmetry of the find was fitting). I perused woolen shoes with pointy toes, countless strings of prayer beads, and elephant-patterned pants. Jewelry in amber and turquoise seduced the eyes, while incense tickled the nose. We find a certain peace when surrounded by all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the colorful silks, and minimalist Tibetan flute music. We browsed a few more precious gift shops (by precious I mean ridiculously expensive silly shit) that have found their way to the area, and soon it was cocktail hour. The warm and cozy bar of Harvest proved a happy spot to convalesce and seek out dining options on OpenTable, even if a single rum drink proved one too many for Kira, who was soon growing giddy and said the room was spinning, so we made our way to the Red House, which we had passed earlier, and had an open slot after 7.
Lead past an open fireplace, we had made the right choice, at least ambience-wise, and a cozy little dinner was enjoyed as we rested from our extensive ambulation. Making our way back from Cambridge, we switched to the Green line and exited at Copley so we could pause at the Lenox Hotel lobby, which was festooned gloriously for the season, and had a roaring fire with two sitting chairs just for us. The remainder of the evening was spent doing one more bucket brigade, and the start of ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’. We never did make it to the penultimate ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ but that’s what next year will be for. That night, the rain arrived – a heavy wide-ranging blanket of it, impossible to escape for the whole of the next day – so when I rose at 7:30 and saw the dismal state of the outside world, I closed the blinds and for the first time in forever we slept in until 11:30.
We’d had the foresight to get some food supplies just for this circumstance, so we lazily took our time, assembling some bagels with gravlax, and a quick egg dish. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying some quality time with a friend at the condo, especially when the rain is tapping at the windows. Eventually it subsided, so we rushed and got ready for one final shopping spurt.
As the light lowered on another day, and our seventh annual Holiday Stroll came to a quiet close, I dropped Kira at the T-station and hit the Mass Pike. We had done a lot – securing most of the items needed for the upcoming Boston Children’s Holiday Hour – and checked off quite a few of the boxes from our respective gift lists. Mostly, though, we simply enjoyed the company at this time of the year. That’s what Christmas should be anyway. The hustle and bustle is bearable when you have a friend to share in the fun.
